


Ask And It Shall Be Given

by jujubiest



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Domestic, Hannigram holiday exchange 2015, M/M, Murder Husbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 22:27:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5515559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My Hannigram Holiday Exchange gift for for-the-love-of-baldur. Will and Hannibal are living in quiet domesticity, but Will feels a constant, nagging uneasiness that he doesn't know how to deal with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ask And It Shall Be Given

**Author's Note:**

  * For [for-the-love-of-baldur](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=for-the-love-of-baldur).



> Set after 3x13.

Theirs is an uneasy domesticity.

It sits more elegantly on Hannibal's shoulders than Will's, which Will finds ironic. He always thought Hannibal wore the niceties of hearth and home like an ill-fitted dinner jacket, something put on out of necessity and discarded at the first opportunity. Now, he wonders if perhaps he's been projecting his own caged-animal anxiety onto Hannibal this whole time.

* * *

Will wakes from a troubled sleep in the early hours of each morning, a shapeless hunger already heating in his blood. Hannibal's eyes open slowly, his lips lifting into a small smile as his gaze finds Will's.

The smile lingers while he makes breakfast, Will watching from the counter with a barely-contained energy thrumming through him, making its way out through the restless tapping of his fingers on the marble countertop.

He doesn't know what it is he's aching for but the need grows sharp and jagged-edged when Hannibal presents him with a delicately-arranged breakfast and presses an almost tentative kiss to his forehead. Will’s hands want to reach out and hold Hannibal there next to him, grasp and claim, mark and possess.

He picks up his fork and graces Hannibal with a quick, rare smile that trembles around the edges ever so slightly. Hannibal returns it, and his usually sharp perception seems to have failed him now. Will’s nervousness goes unmentioned.

* * *

They fill their days with reading, with art, with beauty and music. Will is torn in halves, both rejecting this finery as foreign, ill-suited, unwanted; one part longs for the spare, simple quiet of his former home, the smell of dogs and the endless stretch of snow-covered fields surrounding him, a desolate kind of peace.

The other part howls for wild winter air and the thrill of hurtling through darkness with purpose and without instruction, for hot newly-spilled blood turned a gleaming, exquisite black in the moonlight.

He is afraid of himself sometimes. Afraid that he is too much monster and not enough man, even for another monster, even for Hannibal. His roughness and his strange mind will lose their novelty one day, he's sure, and he's almost more afraid of that day's arrival than he is of what he’s become.

He can't imagine going back to that meek, terrified creature he was before. But he also can’t imagine being who and what he is without Hannibal. The thought is...repellent, nausea-inducing.

* * *

The hunger only deepens when night falls. It throbs in his heart, sinks into his ribcage, fills up his lungs. It drowns out every other feeling, until his insides are writhing with it. He goes to sleep beside Hannibal with bloodless hands, untouched, night after night, and he doesn't _understand_. Why does Hannibal keep him close if he has no use for him? Why go to all the trouble of seducing him into this...twisted partnership, if he's never going to follow through? Why not just put him out of his misery?

It takes a month of quiet, peaceful, domestic days and nights for Will to ask his questions out loud. They come spilling out over dinner, rude and unfiltered as he always is when he's uncomfortable or afraid. Right now, he's afraid Hannibal has grown bored.

Hannibal puts down his fork and considers Will for a moment before standing.

"Leave the dishes," he says brusquely. "We will attend to them later."

And he disappears through the door to the hall that leads to their bedroom, leaving Will to stand on legs that shake. He follows slowly, his entire body a livewire of mingled dread and anticipation.

He is ambushed as soon as he steps through the doorway of their bedroom, pulled into heavy darkness and shoved, not gently, against the nearest wall.

Hannibal’s breath is cool as new death on his face, and Will is already shivering so violently with impatient expectation that his teeth are chattering.

“My dear Will,” Hannibal’s voice is smooth and dangerous. “All you had to do was ask.”

Will manages to push a single word through his trembling lips.

“Please,” and it has all the urgency of a demand for all that the word itself is pleading. Hannibal’s answering smile is the leer of a predator.

“It would be my pleasure."

* * *

Will wakes gradually to yellow sunlight filtering through the deep burgundy of the bedroom window’s curtains, bathing the walls in bloody hues. He stretches and smiles, marveling at the pleasant aches throughout his body, the unaccustomed tranquility of his mind.

He relaxes into the warmth at his back, not turning, and is rewarded with a soft nip at his neck and a low, throaty chuckle.

“Good morning, Will.”

“Good morning, Hannibal.”

“What shall we do today?”

Will smiles, a feeling of deep contentment spreading through him, because now he understands: Hannibal was waiting. Waiting for him.

And all he ever had to do was ask.

Will turns in Hannibal’s arms.

“The day is yours,” he says softly, his gentle tone belying the hunger lurking beneath the surface. “But I do have something in mind for us tonight.”

“Oh?” Hannibal says, eyebrow raised. “I confess I am intrigued. Will you divulge your plans, or am I to be made to suffer in my own curiosity until nightfall?”

Will’s smile widens, transforming his face into something dark and feral.

“Let’s just say I think our pantry could use some restocking, and…I’ve made a grocery list.”


End file.
